The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Scam Goddess w/ Andy Richter

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

This week, we're sharing Andy's recent appearance on another Team Coco podcast: Scam Goddess with the hilarious Laci Mosley! Together, Laci and Andy dig up the sauciest of cons by R&V Warren Farms. Between 1997 and 2003, as the most successful tomato farmers on the eastern seaboard, they swindled the government out of $9 million before investigators discovered that the B in their BLT stood for “bullshit.” Keep the scams coming and snitch on your friends by emailing Scam Goddess at [e-mail] you want to talk to Andy live on SiriusXM’s Conan O’Brien Radio? Tell us your favorite dinner party story (about anything!) or ask a question - leave a voicemail at 855-266-2604 or fill out our Google Form at BIT.LY/CALLANDYRICHTER. Listen to "The Andy Richter Call-In Show" every Wednesday at 1pm Pacific on SiriusXM's Conan O'Brien Channel.Follow Scam Goddess on Instagram:ScamGoddess Pod: @scamgoddesspodLaci Mosley: @divalaciAndy Richter: @richtercommaandyResearch by Kathryn Doyle SOURCEShttps://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/2013/12/21/candler-tomato-farmer-sentenced-to-prison-/4151515/https://www.npr.org/2005/11/14/5009836/tomato-farmers-caught-out-in-insurance-scamhttps://www.starnewsonline.com/story/news/2003/10/11/feds-farmers-faked-crop-loses-for-insurance-money/30527516007/https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/crop-production/american-gothic-farm-couple-nailed-massive-9m-crop-insurance-fraud Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the three questions. I'm your host, Andy Richter. I've been a little busy dancing lately, so we got a little behind on some of our episodes. So we're going to do something a little different today. This week, I am sharing my recent appearance on another Team Coco podcast, scam goddess, with the very funny Lacey Mosley. Every week, Lacey and her funny friends discuss a new scam, whether from the news or from history. Naturally, in my episode, you're about to hear, we discussed a tomato farmer's scam. You know me and tomato farmers. Anyway, so enjoy it. Here's my conversation with Lacey.

of the podcast, all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Remember, y'all, this is still a comedy show, but the facts are real. We don't want to get sued. Now, y'all already know. It's honestly, like, is it repetitive now? It's been six years. It's been six years. But you already know, I'm very, yes, excited, thrilled, elated, okay, over the moon.

Congregation, get ready. Because today we have an icon on the show. He's an actor, voice actor. Oh, a voice actor, writer, game show host, and podcast host. He has been in over 1,000 episodes of Conan, 1,441 episodes, to be precise. You might have heard him in American Dad, Big City Greens, Madagascar, and so much more congregation. Please get up out of your seats, okay? Get your fans up with the Martin Luther King on one side and a funeral home on the other.

Stand up, wave him in the air. And welcome back legend Andy Richter to the show. Hi, Lacey. That's so nice. It's so true. Oh, it's very nice. You know, it's like, you know, when I'm picking up dog shit, I don't feel like an icon. So it's always, it's nice to hear, but it does feel like, that doesn't really feel, you know what I mean?

I love that your dog is keeping you humble. Yes. Well, you may be a star. There's two of them. But you are going to pick up our poops, Mr. Star, man. That's right. Exactly. You ain't at the same.

right now you ain't at the studio right now no nobody cares you at the dog park i love they're like now you my bitch wait what kind of dogs do you have uh i have two i have a one i have a very comically different uh one's 125 pounds uh she's like great pyrenees border collie and german shepherd she's a big hairy guard dog and then we have a seven pound poodle mix who's hilarious. Do we get along together? Oh, they love each other. They love each other. And, like, yeah, they're great. And the little one is just so, she's just joy. You know, she's just joy in a dog. And I, and we fostered a few dogs, some just to foster, some as kind of like a test run, which I highly recommend. Well, first of all, don't buy a dog. Rescue a dog. There's too many

dogs in the world. Yeah, in California, you can only, you're only supposed to, I think, rescue dogs, I don't, well, I think you can buy one from a breeder. Yeah, you can go from a different state. Yeah, you, well, no, but I think there's so people here that breed dogs. Yeah, that's true. I thought they might be doing it. But there's no pet stores. It's just pet stores.

Oh, yeah. You can't buy dogs in stores anymore because that's where the puppy mills were. Oh, they were feeding them to the dog store. Yeah, yeah. Which hurt, you know, it's like it used to be fun to go to the Beverly Center and see the puppies in the pet store, but that's like, can't do that anymore. Now I go to Larchmont and I feel like they're trying to scam me with those dogs. because, like, I'll walk by and they'll, like, have a couple of them out on a leash. And I know they know to run up to you.

Oh, you mean, like, the rescues? Yeah. Yeah. They run up to you looking all cute and undamished. Yes. They were like, don't worry, I wasn't in any cockfights. Intensive charm training before they take them out on the large months. And I learned from my friend who does a lot of animal rescue that a lot of shelters will actually

take, like, two years off the dog's actual age because nobody wants, like, an old dog. So they'll, like, you thin up the dog a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I was like, really? That's wild. I don't know that's not happening everywhere, but I know it's happening some places for sure. It's strange, too, because there are people who wanted to have senior dogs.

Like, I've known so many people that are, they'll just go get like a seven-year-old dog and, you know, keep it till it dies and then go get another seven-year-old dog. I guess in L.A. there's a big commodity for young hot dogs. Yeah, that's right. That's right, because you never know if one of them might turn into an influencer. Oh, listen, okay? People are making a lot of money off their dogs. I can't believe it. You don't have an Instagram for your dog yet?

Your dog needs to start earning a keep. It can't just be a freeloader in your house, just eat your free food. It would be too humiliating. Like, I'm not making enough money with showbiz that if my dog started to make more than me. You'd be jealous? I wouldn't take it, you know, and then she'd probably get emancipated and, you know. and I wouldn't see dime one. You come home and her doggy bed

is by the door with all her toys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, Bucky. Yeah, yeah. And then, like, Keanu Reeves picks her up on a motorcycle. On a motorcycle, it's great. She's in a dog, but holding Keanu Reeves.

Yeah. Oh, but then you got to give your dog to Keanu Reeves, so he's great. Yeah, that, okay. If he comes to your door and he's like, I should have picked somebody else. Yeah, because you know, John Wick was all about his dog. Yeah, no, yeah.

Tom Sandeval. We don't want him having your dog. Right, right. But Mr. John Wick. Yeah, you got to give up the dog. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But hold on, let me get her collar and things. She loves wet food.

Right. Can I visit her? No. I don't have to worry about you avenging her because that's what you do, John Wick. Andy, are you going to avenge her? No. I mean, maybe if he kills her. I guess that's sort of the thing.

No, no. No, Keanu would never. Wow. I hope your dog doesn't hear this podcast, but I also do. Stream this for your dogs in the other room, y'all. You know, we want those streams. But we do already, we kind of got into a scamby conversation talking about pet adoption a little bit. But what is your relationship with scams right now?

Have you been scammed recently? Do you know any scams that have been run? Are there any scams that are just like really catching your eye and the zeit guys? It could literally be anything. Well, I don't know why it is. And I'm not, and I'm not the only one. But somebody in the Philippines really wants to rip me off through my easy pass. Okay.

You know, the thing in your car. Have you been getting those texts? Yeah. You didn't pay a toll. And all you're going to do is, like, look up the country code. And it's like, the Philippines. You know, it's like, I don't think. We've outsourced Easy Pass to the Philippines.

You didn't know? And now they text you. Right, right. Yeah, it's all in Manila. You've got to get in touch with us. Big warehouse of people just on smartphones. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I don't know if I told you this before, but there was a, I did almost get, and I'm embarrassed by it. Don't be embarrassed. It's the place. Shame for you. I know, but, but you know what I mean? I mean, have you ever, like, gotten to, far into and you're like, wait a minute. I'm being scammed. And why the fuck did I not know that before now? Has that ever happened to you? I mean, yeah, in specific ways, but it was kind of like a different person was scamming me with a service. So like headshots or something like that. But like when it comes to like a scam, I can usually sense it out pretty early. My issue is that I want to take it too far. But that's not to say that I haven't seen some wild scams or gotten pretty close to falling for something. But the clickable internet links, I Honestly, I'm getting a little fatigued with scamming right now, which is crazy because I'm

scam goddess, but I'm glad I can tell you this, Andy, that I am getting at least 10 phone calls a day from scammers. I'm getting voicemails. I'm getting text messages. I'm getting emails flooded. And, like, my professional email, which I don't even put out publicly. And it is getting to the point where I just like, they come at 5 a.m. That's when they start.

And I'm so pissed off. I've blocked so many numbers. And I'm just like, all right, scammers, leave me to fuck alone. Like, at this point, we got to fight. Like, meet me in the parking lot. Like if you want this money, I'm going to pop this trunk and get my bat out and let's see who wins. Yeah. Like, it's wild.

But so you're getting the Manila situation. They're texting you, telling you about the EasyPad. Well, no, there was one point. But there's something else, right? Yeah, there was one point a few years ago. It was actually, it was during COVID because I was home and I think they woke me up with a phone call. And it was something I don't remember. It had a legit tie into like something that I was buying or something.

You know, they always had, there's like that little thing. And this guy's talking to me and he's like telling me they're going to give me a refund for something. And he's and he asks like, you know, go to log into this thing so that I can see your hard drive to see where it is. And I was like, okay. And then looking and like two seconds after I figured out and I was like, what the fuck? What are you a grandpa? Like what is going on? But I did.

And he was looking at my computer. And he's like, okay, now we need to have, well, they did something. They were like, oh, no, we were going to refund you $240, but we put two zeros on. So it's $24,000 or something like that. Right. And I was like, oh, what? And then you're like, we need to get into, you know, we need you to access your bank. So it's like 23.

Yeah. And I just, and by that point, I just was like, all it took was I said, you know what, I'm going to need a number to call you back. And I said, because I have to call some people first. And he just went, click, and was done, you know. What's interesting is that they were calling you after a purchase you had made recently, which kind of like legitimized it a little bit more, which is why I understand why you would go forward. Like, why I did just buy this and like, okay, you know what I mean? And they're on the phone with you.

So there's a bigger sense of urgency. Like when you read something, that's why the scammers who send me the emails can't ever really get me. Because like I can check for grammar. I can check the email address. You know what I mean? like Amazon ain't ever hit me up with Amazon with a zero and the O, you know. Hotmail is not where the IRS will contact you. So it's like when you're reading those, you can find a lot of the spots.

But when people call you, it's a little different. It's a little more urgent. Right. I just don't ever answer the phone. Yeah. Unless I know who it is. I just don't ever answer the phone. But you work so much on sets and stuff.

Like, do you have like a burner number for production people or no? No, no, no. Well, then like you do have to answer some numbers you don't know sometimes, right? Yeah, but I mean, if it. If that does happen, somebody will leave a message and I'll check, you know, I'll check. Oh, that's smart. If I think there's something, you know, like in the air, like I might be getting a call about something, they might leave a message and then I can, you know, immediately call them back.

That's smart. I think we all got to just start sending things to voicemail and then hoping that other person texts and then we'll be like, oh, okay, it's you if you don't know the number. Because it's getting, it's so predatory now. And it's such an onslaught that I can't imagine what it feels like to be someone else, like just like a person who doesn't, like, think about scams and stuff like that, like, you're, you could get got so easily. And also this one of those give a little to get a lot. Like, oh, we gave you too much money. We need you to send some back. And also, like, I have never seen a company want to give you your money back. Yeah. So anytime a company connects with me and they're like, oh, we have a refund for you or oh, you got overcharged. I'm like, this isn't real. Corporations will keep all my money. Yeah, yeah. Even if I make an accidental purchase, they will keep it and, oh, you notice that we took your money? Oh, that's, crazy. So you want it back? Yeah, that's going to take six to eight business months. And I'm like, I paid you, I paid you in 30 seconds. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We got to do the processing, the shipping, the handling,

the handling of the shipping. You get it. Yeah, yeah. A friend of mine, this is, this is, this is, this one is so, so evil. A friend of mine, who's it like a struggling actor, you know, he's been an actor's whole life, but it's, you know, it's a struggle. There's a lot, you know. And, And so he was behind on his utility bill. And, you know, he's like going to pay the bill. But he gets a call one morning and it's DM, whatever you call it, DWP. And they're like, you have to pay this now. It's gone too far.

You need to come and you need to give us at, you know, at least half of it or something. Or pay the full amount. Since when the DWP, I put something on it. They were like, they like, you have. to do this now because we're you know you have to come down to this office he's scared and he's in first of all he's embarrassed that he's that far you know it's like you feel like shit when you when you're behind on your bills they give him a number an address he goes down it has signage it's like and there's like a you know he said it seems it seems kind of like it's an they just moved in

but it's still they have signage they have a receptionist they have all this stuff he goes in get and And it has given, gives them a cashier's check for, I don't know, like $1,500. Finds out that it's completely a scam. Oh, no. And the part that's really, because he went to the police about it. Okay. And the police are like, yeah, this has been happening. And he goes, and he says, they told them like that place, they'll be gone from there tomorrow.

Like they're in a different place, but they actually have you come down and physically give them a cashier's check. And it's all people who are worried about losing their fucking electricity. And you're preying on the most vulnerable of the community. And it's got to be somebody at the power company going, here's a list of people who are delinquent. Getting the pink bills, you know. And it's just, I just think like, God damn. And the police are just like, oh, yeah, this has been happening. Police, sirs, this is actually what we give you tax money for.

I know, I know. Hell you mean, oh, it's been happening. Anytime the black people want to congregate for a peaceful rally, y'all out here beating us with sticks and shit. But then as soon as we're like, can you do some police work? You're like, oh, yeah, we heard about that. Let us know if you will get any leads. The black people are easy to find. They're right there.

They're right there. The scammers, not as easy. Not so easy. No, no, no, no. Good luck finding that person at the power company that's giving away people's names. God forbid you do some real police work. It was like, no, the black people are right outside. I can see it through my window.

Listen, you know. But the scammer, I don't know who that is. You know, that's a lot more man hours. You want us to do stuff for the society? Oh, that's crazy. No, we hear it to beat the society. society is. I'm like, okay, thank you. So much. Scams. Cards. It's also really smart, too, that they're getting a cashier's check. Because you can't stop that. You can't stop a

cashier's check. It's cash. Yeah, it's done. And that's why if you lose one, it's really bad. It's like, yeah, you can only put it back in your bank if you have the cashier's check. Yeah. Because if you could, like, if you paid your utilities with a credit card, then you could, you know, if you could scam from that, you can appeal to the credit card. No, she'd get the miles. I try and pay as much stuff as I can with credit cards just to get miles. And it's like it's like the one sort of silver lining in the cloud of paying too much for everything. You know what I've also hated is like return policies now.

Like they'll give you a return policy at a store and it'll be like, okay, bring it back. in 11 days or you can't return it. It's like, what is 11 days? Like, they get very close to two weeks, just close enough that you forget. Yeah, I wonder what that is. Yeah, 12-day return policies. I've seen that a lot, eight-day return.

There must be some sort of like... It's like a mental gymnastics of... If you hear something that sounds close to a week or close to two weeks, but it isn't exactly... Yeah. I think people forget. See, I just was wondering if it's like based somehow on how long it takes credit cards to post or something, you know, I don't know.

No, I think they don't know shit about money. If you get a free trial on something on any app or buy something that you know you might not use, definitely like ask for the return policy and put the date like the day before or two days before in your calendar is an alarm so that you can cancel that service or return that item beforehand. I just I just did. I was in New York City for about 12 days working on something, a guest spot on a show, had a number of days off sort of sprinkled throughout. And I was using the city bikes and I found like you join the city bike club or whatever. And then you don't, there's like this $4 charge every time you get a city bike out. And if you join and it had a free 15 day wait period. So like, all right, sure, I'll sign up for city bike.

And then on the drive to the airport, I'm away home. I canceled it. And I felt very clever. Yes. Because I saved. You know, it's probably by the time. Because I used the city, do you ever use those city bikes in New York City? Okay, so the last one I kind of stole by accident.

Oh, well, that happens. I mean, I felt bad, though, because I didn't know the person who left the bike would get charged for the bike. But it was pride, and I just saw a bike. And, you know, it was time for me to be gay and do things. Like, be gay, do crime. Yeah. And that's when I learned that you can, for the listeners out there, I don't have any DUIs, but just no. you can't get a DUI on a bike.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I did not know that. It has wheels, y'all. So if you had a festival, don't try that. Don't try that, okay? Walk next to it. Put it down. That's on the person, too,

that just, like, left a city bike sitting somewhere. You got to expect it. But for all I know, maybe they went to the bathroom. Maybe they were trying to find a bathroom or maybe they were talking to their friends. I don't know. I felt bad. I didn't know that the city bike, like, the city bike,

if it doesn't get returned, you get charged. Yeah, I didn't know about that. Yeah. But I've city biked before. It feels very dangerous to me in New York. I just really liked it, and especially because in New York now, they have the e-bikes, which is like... Ooh, I'm like, okay, at this point, it's giving car. Like, maybe in the road, like...

It's a little motorcycle, but it's easier. You know, I was, they put me up in Brooklyn and just to get around Brooklyn, you know, instead of like calling for a lift that would cost $30 to go from Greenpoint to Williamsburg to watch a movie. It's like, get on an e-bike and wee! And just ride down the waterfront down, you know, it's, it was really, and it was summertime and it was, you know, sun down a couple of times. It was really nice. I really liked them. I would do it if I had better balance.

I feel like you have good balance then. If you like e-bikes and city bikes and stuff, I feel like I'm just going to take one wrong lean and then it's, I'm a skin mark, like, you know. It is nerve-wracking. You do have to, like, get over the hump of, oh, shit, cars are everywhere, and they're going everywhere. And this bike lane seems to be. more of a suggestion than an actual lane that's being respected by anybody but me so okay you know

I hate that they had a subscription service for it though if I was riding every day and I lived in New York maybe but like I'm starting to really hate subscription services for things that shouldn't be subscriptions I hate clothing subscription services I can't even say it like why am I subscribing to clothes many many that's crazy I won't list them but many and it it annoys me they're like oh do they send you clothes without you ask? I went into the store and I went into an athletic store, if you know, you know, and they had like a steep, steep discount. So I was like, I'm just going to get a bunch of athletic clothes right now and then cut off the service when I get home. But they make it really difficult to do.

Like you have to go on their website, you know, write the right pen, a handwritten letter, like send pictures of an obituary. Like, I do all this stuff to get out of it. And some clothing brands have been sued for this. But, yeah, they were like, oh, this top and bottom is $100 if you don't, if you're not. a member but if you're a member it's half off and it's only 50 or like even lower than that they'd be like two for 20 but if you're not a member two for 80 to for a million yeah yeah so it's a nice little scam but I'm like we don't need to subscribe to clothes wow and it's a fee that you have to pay every month you know for the privilege of the savings for the privilege of having cheaper clothes because

you're gonna need so many leggings your whole life that this makes sense yeah see I don't I don't buy enough clothes anymore I'm gonna just for just figured out what it I'm talking about. No, but I'm part of one. You just realized you're a part of one, Jess? No, I realized that I forgot to skip this month and they're going to charge it. No, our producer just realized she's a part of one of those clothing, those clothing traps, and she forgot to skip the payment.

I lately have been having, and, you know, I know this is a different, a different kind of business, but the membership that we have to the trampoline park in Alhambra is impossible to cancel. And they get you too Because you go in And it's like The first time you go in It's like it's $35

Andy how much jumping were you planning to do I got a 5 year old You go and you Get them tired tuck it out Yeah yeah exactly It's like a hamster wheel For a human

You know But the first time you go It's like it's $33 to come in But only 35 to join And then you can come back as much as you want You know on weekdays Not on weekend stuff I'm like okay

All right sure I'll do that I'll do the 35 And even while I'm doing it, I'm thinking like, because they're just counting on people forgetting that they've signed up for the trampoline park in Alhambra. And, and I have tried, I got to go the fuck down there and say, take me off of you because I've tried. And you better get your jumps in. You better just get your jumps in. It's like a gang.

They got to jump you out. You jump in and jump you out. It's not even for me. Like I can, it's my daughters. You know, it's her, it's connected to her. So when I go, I can't even jump. I have to, I would have to pay money to jump if I want to. No.

That's, oh, that's wild. You can for all the jumps and the hops. You get a separate wristband and that, you know, that they're like, yeah, this is, that's a non-jumping wrist band, you know. I wonder if we can get your daughter to do something so that y'all are banned. And then they have to cut off the thing, right? Like maybe she just brings like a milkshake and like jumps with it. Yeah, or smoke.

You know, just get on the drunk, dribbling with a cigarette. Like, you can't, ma'am, you cannot come here anymore. Like, great, can you cancel our membership? Yeah, yeah. She immediately was like, perfect. Cancel. Andy Richter. Other kids are like, I want to smoke too.

That looks cool. That looks so fun. Mommy, can I have a cigarette? Yes. Well, let's get into my favorite segment here, Andy. Historic Hoodwings. This is where I will regale, Andy, with a famous. con caper group of criminals will get his opinions all throughout.

Andy, this is the only safe space to interrupt a woman, so really cherish it. All right, I will. So today we're going back a little bit in time. Between 1997 and 2003, the most successful tomato farmers on the eastern seaboard swindled the government out of $9 million before investors discovered that the B in their BLT stood. for bullshit. So tomato farmers. Cool.

In the late 90s, R&V Warren Farms was the largest vine-ripened tomato grower in the eastern U.S. employing about 200 people. Okay.

And I wonder what those people look like. So it period. Period. They probably look like Mario and Luigi. Right.

Stop playing on a lot. We make of the tomato. I love that we make of the tomato. Yeah. Yeah, so it was run by Robert and Vicki Warren, a middle-aged married couple who seemed like typical down-home farmers. At one point, they owned 26 farms in three states, including North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Then in 2003, in the basement of their modest farmhouse, department of agriculture investigators found liquid eraser bottles, copy machines, PVC pipes, and 106. Tens of thousands of forged documents.

What is it? All those things. Liquid eraser and PVC pipes. Yes. Are they making disappearing bombs? Right. At first I was like, it's giving murder a little bit. Yeah.

But now it's kind of actually giving like, maybe we're like, how does it all work to get? How does it all? Copy machines, PVC pipes. But they have forged documents. So maybe they're lifting the ink off of real documents. Yeah. Paper kind of, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I hope it doesn't mean liquid paper, because if y'all were lifting it with liquid paper, then maybe, like, how are y'all getting away with this? I love it. It's just a real down-home, yeah, it's real down-home kind of feel. You're right. And copy machines, so if it's the 90s, and I put a little of that paper-white on, and then I run it through the copy machine, then rewrite on top of it after it's dry properly. Otherwise, it's going to get all, you know I get a little thick.

Mm-hmm. I don't know these things, but okay, I can see what's happening. happening here. So by liquid eraser bottle, they mean white out? We don't know. We don't know. We don't know. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what that that seems to be like, you know, that's like they're trying to use a non-trademarked. Yeah. Let's look up liquid eraser. Yeah. Because I would think it would be white out. It must be. Yeah, must be liquid paper or white out, which are the two brand names. And they won't use that. You know. Right. Yeah. No free ads in the in the press. It's white out. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. They were manipulating paper. Yeah. And then copying it so you couldn't, obviously, it's a 90s copyer machine. It's not going to be like ours today. So you probably couldn't tell that it was whited out. Oh, somebody had a very steady hand. Got to keep that line underneath black. Yeah, you got to. So for six years, Robert and Vicki had been running a $9 million dollar crop insurance scheme, the biggest farm fraud in the history of the U.S. Wow. And this is 90s, 9 million. So that was the 9 million was 9 millioning, okay? Nowadays 9 million. I mean, it's still a lot of money. but it's not what it was in the 90s. It's nothing.

Nine million. That's my walking around money now. Please. You renting when you got $9 million. That's what my closing subscriptions cost. Right. Truly. Likely.

So in 1996, before they embarked on a life of crime, Robert and Vicki lived in a brick ranch-style home with a pickup truck in the driveway in Western North Carolina. Their buyers knew the Warren Farms produced big yields of high-quality, tomatoes. Everything was going great. So they were living legit. They were working legit. All right. I don't know why it's important for us to know they got a pickup truck in their driveway, but I guess they're folksy. I guess. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. So in 1997, they bought crop insurance. And all of a sudden, their tomato harvest started to take a hit. Or so they said.

So when they started getting that good insurance, they were like, oh no, the pests. All of our aside, didn't work on the pests. Yeah, yeah. We have less tomatoes. I don't know. A bear came and ate all our shit. Aphids. So many aphids.

So many aphids. You wouldn't believe. It was a swan. Yeah, they came up from the border. We need to deport the aphids. We need to do something. No. No, no.

Robbery. In 1997, Robert planted his farm in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He told the E.L. Ross Insurance Company that he planted on April 15th. The date allowed under his policy. In reality, he planted between April 4th and April 12. Later, he filed a claim for cold weather damage in April and May and collected $157,712,000 in crop insurance. So he planted earlier than what he said. So he got the crop popping and then harvested it and was like, oh, no, my crops, they froze in April because it's so cold in South.

Is it cold in South Carolina in April? And wintertime in the interior and in the mountains. Is April winter? Yeah, yeah, I bet you still get freezes, which can kill a tomato plant. That's true. That's true. So they also reported remarkably minimal yields on several farms. So they're basically saying, we're not making no money on some of these farms that we've got.

These farms are broke. So on the Spartanburg farm, they claimed a harvest of 9,862 boxes of fresh tomatoes. The actual harvest was 78,670 boxes. Oh, my God. They said they did nine. They basically did almost 10 times the amount that they reported. And they pocketed nearly $150,000. See, that's just, you're dumb.

Like, you pocket 25 grand. Don't make it so obvious. You know what I mean? Or maybe don't file an insurance claim every year. Yeah. I mean, there's the don't do it school of thought. Like, you've got to do a little insurance fraud as a treat. Yeah, yeah.

You can't be doing it. Lying by 10 fold or 8, 9 fold, that's crazy. No. So for their 10 farms in 1997, the Warrens claimed losses on 5. They received $644,000 and dropped. insurance or premium credits for their scheme. So I know the crop insurance company got to be tired at this point. Yeah, it's got to raise red flags.

Because insurance doesn't want to give you your money anyway. You can pay your whole life and get sick on, you know, like in your 80s. And they'll be like, oh, actually we're going to cancel your policy. It makes me curious, too, is like, how does the crop insurance thing work? Like, they just take your word for it. Like, I planted a bunch of corn and, I don't know, something killed it. Give me some money. Like, they're just like, oh, okay.

I would imagine there's a claims adjuster because they did lie about when they plot, they, you know, dropped the seeds. What are farmer words? When they planted, you know, they lied about it. So they must have had to harvest before the claims adjuster came. Yeah. And if they filed on the 15th and they harvest on the 12th, that gives them plenty of time to like, I guess, yeah, yeah. For the adjuster to come.

So they hadn't actually lost anything, right? They were still producing the same tomatoes and selling them out of the back door. Additional profit on top of the insurance gambit, right? So they ran the same scheme in 1998, dramatically lowered overall harvest numbers, fudged figures between fields, and netted $1 million in insurance money. Then they decided to go big, because $1 million wasn't big enough. Also, they're selling the surplus of tomatoes that they didn't claim out the back door. What does a backdoor tomato deal look like, Andy? It's at night.

I don't know. How would I know? I feel like you've done a backdoor tomato deal once or twice. I would never. Listen, I would never. I would only buy tomatoes from registered tomato vendors. I would never buy my tomatoes on the street. You don't know. They might have been black market tomatoes that you were giving.

Okay? How are we supposed to trace that? Yeah, there's no way to know. Okay. I mean, look, there's some really nice stores out there. And I'm sure they get them nice tomatoes from somewhere. So by 1999, the Warrens had 20 farms, and they claimed losses on 18 of them. Using forage chemical receipts, sales figures, surveyor letters,

acreage reports planting dates, like fudging the planting days, which we already saw, payroll records. They were fudging that too. These people ain't on the payroll. Invoices, manifest, and more. Like literally any document you could fake, they were faking it. Wow. Like some of these, I'm like, did you even really need to fake this? Yeah.

It's almost like at a point, it's like it's a compulsive disorder or something. Yeah. You know what I mean? Because it's like, especially too, if they're like, where's this money going if they're living in this modest ranch house? Right. I mean, does the pickup truck turn into a monster truck? Is that the tip off that they get? That's the grave digger.

That's the famous monster truck. The grave digger. Yeah. And the, the license plate is. is like tomatose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Insurance fraud. Oh, that's too many letters.

Okay, just make it F-R-D. Okay, yeah, I and this F-R-B. Right. Just make it. 11. B-M-T, Black Market Tomatoes. Yes. Oh, BMT is good.

Yes. So they claimed 512,000 tomato boxes in 1999. So I guess some of this money was going into expansion because they did buy more farms. They just claimed that those farms weren't working. very well. Because that's the business thing. If you're not making money, you buy more businesses that don't make money. They teach that in business school. I learned it. Yeah, it's really a smart way to do it. It is. Especially if you want to do insurance fraud, which they also teach in business school. Yeah. I take the classes to be like, so how, if I were to do this, how would I stop someone

from doing it? What are the signs? I need to know. Yeah. Could you list everything that someone would do to do insurance fraud so I can keep an eye on? Yeah, yeah. I've got it. Yeah, just what are the, what are the markers. Like, you have to learn a lot of that if you work in insurance. Oh, absolutely. And then you can use those skills on both sides of the coin. But there's always that, you know, it's like Embry Casino. It's like the people that they hire to stop the cheaters are former cheaters. And I'm, and I'm sure that the IRS has tax cheats. Oh, yeah. The government does it all the time. They'll let you out early if you can tell them how you defrauded them. Yeah, yeah. Or hackers, same thing. Yeah, big for hackers. Yeah. I don't know, though. If I was a really good hacker, I'm not working for uncle's saying. Well, I guess they got you

or buying because they caught you. Right, right. Now you've got to go. Yeah, that's true. So their 1999 haul was $3.8 million in insurance money. That was an insurance money. It's not even their hall for like legitimate backdoor tomato in the alley at night in a trench coat sales. Right.

This is just insurance fraud. So this all comes from private insurance companies and is later reimbursed by the federal government. So the private insurance company, I could see them not looking that hard because, They know they're going to get the money. Insurance is a scam. So he was like, look, Uncle Sam got us, so we didn't even go. What y'all say? No tomatoes this year from all 20 farms?

That's crazy. How much y'all need? 12 million? At no point nobody's like, maybe I should get out of this business. No insurance just called. And it was like, hey, hey, guys. Maybe corn. Hey, the Warren family.

Yeah, maybe corn. Maybe corn. Have you guys thought about grapes? Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Something's sturdy. like pumpkins or maybe not farming maybe that's an option you just don't farm anymore they're like no no no so in 2000 they had 26 farms and doubled down with the tomato and strawberry fraud now we got strawberries in the mix oh no leave strawberries alone oh strawberries are involved now miss shortcake count your days you're going to jail babes i mean tomatoes you know tomatoes are very sort of ethically challenged they're just a very of all of the fruits and vegetables, they are the scammiest, schemingest.

Everyone knows that. Yeah, because tomatoes be out here pretending to be a vegetable every day. It's like, you're a fruit. Like, you're already lying to me. Precisely. Yeah. But strawberries, they've done nothing. They're honest.

They didn't deserve this. Yeah. So this payout that they got in 2000 from the 26th rhymes was $2,254,000. Jesus. Mm-hmm. And so on Independence Day of 2001, style out to the Fourth of Julycee. The Warrens pulled their biggest fraud yet. That year, they had switched insurance companies to firemen's fund and added a new farm in Coch County, Tennessee.

So now, I don't know why y'all switching insurance companies, because if it ain't broke, keep scamming it. Yeah. But, okay, as usual, they fake production records for the property, pretended to have grown the tomatoes. Wait a minute. You know what they probably did? I bet you the premiums from the company. that they were already scamming, they're probably like, these premiums are too high. Like, they're charging us too much for ripping them off.

We need to find someone that charges us less for ripping them off. I love that mentality. They're like trying to save money on the money they're stealing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like, how dare you charge me to put them out there? Right, right. Yeah, there ain't no robbery tax. And I've also been thinking like, hmm, I wonder who they voted for.

There's that one. Oh, we know who they voted for. And then, and then also, too, I wonder how they voted. feel about people on welfare you know that's there's so much that's there's so much of that among the farm world like you know know these people soaking up all the benefits like which is wow they were so hardcore and if my point wasn't clear earlier like farmers were really hardcore about voting for that man yeah deportation mass deportation and now when they realize like like the people who they employ are afraid to come to work they're like wait wait

not like that not like that yeah let me get my employees but I don't know any other Any other browns on the street? Any brown? It could be any race. It could be any race. But not my employees. Somebody with a tan. You know, just, yeah, yeah.

Someone who just got back from the Bahamas. Yeah, a well-tanned person. But, like, no, it's so ridiculous and hypocritical. And also, like, you know, like, people who work on farms provide a service that is so immeasurable. It's like, don't we all need food to live? Yeah, but there's lots of, there is lots of welfare for farming. And, like, like, a lot of,

subsidies for corn so that they grow way too much corn than what is necessary. Yep, and then destroy it. And then they either destroy it or they like strong-armed people to make ethanol, like, corn fuel, you know, and just things like that. Or corn syrup, you know, like it's. It's wild when you learn, like, the food pyramid was a scam that was just made by, like, people in the agriculture industry. Or all those commercials that used to be, like, got milk that were really trying to get you to just buy milk. And then be like, oh, milk, so good for your bones. So good for you. Do you want brittle-ass balls?

But then you better get your brittle-ass up here and get some milk. And it's like, that's not the only way to get vitamin D guys. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but it was a conspiracy. But I thought they were just trying to make me feel more healthy. That's why if you see something online and it's like, now we've learned that eating 10 eggs a day can improve your lifespan. And then like a month later it'll be like, eggs are bad for your heart for the cholesterol. And it's like there's someone propagating this whole thing.

And I don't even think about it because those. that are under the guise of health. I'm like, oh, that's just the government trying to help us be healthy. No, they're trying to offload shit on us. Yes. And you don't even need to worry about any of that because the planet is ruined.

So, you know, yeah, easy come, easy go. Yo, my uncle Jeffrey, he's from the South. And sometimes, like, my southern relatives may have, like, some differences of opinions when it comes to, like, the environment and things like that. So I kind of hold my breath if we get to a more progressive conversation. And that's not all of them. It's just a handful.

A few of them. You just bite your tongue. Just because you're like, let's just get out of this. Right. Let's just start. Yeah. Yeah. Let's make this easy.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to let some bullshit. Right. Right. Right. Right.

But if it's something where I'm like, neither of us is going to fix this. I'm just going to let that go. But if you got hate in your heart, I'm not to walk you down. Absolutely. But so we were talking. We got on the subject of climate change. I think because our straws came and they were just like the saddest paper straws and you know how they just go limp in your mouth after a while. Yeah.

And I'm like, if we're going to crack down on that, can we also crack down on like, I go, if I buy anything from a luxury store, they send me home with 50 reams of paper and six boxes. I mean, I feel like y'all could just put the shoe in the bag. Like, if everybody's going to do their part, if I got to suck on a limp straw, y'all, y'all don't have to have all this paper straw. But I digress. So I was talking to him and I was like, oh, yeah, this paper straw is like, oh, that fucking turtle. I still hate that turtle to this goddamn day. That's turtle with the straw in his snout. And then after that, we're like, everybody has to have paper straws.

But I have beef with that turtle. But you never saw the turtle? No, I did. But your uncle's saying this about the turtle? No, I'm saying this. I'm saying this. This is really blaming the victim, though. No, no.

That turtle knew what it was doing. Franklin's bitch-ass needs to come outside. That turtle was at a hardcore punk show. Turtles lived for like 100 years. That turtle was not pressed about that straw. But fine, whatever. But I was like, but you know what? We got to save the planet.

We got to do right by the planet. So I'm going to suck on this paper. Fucking turtles. I was like, yeah. And he was like, yeah, I mean, climate change. to me it's just like and I was like holding like baited breath and he was like

Clive Change it's just to me like well I mean it's all going to be over what are we fighting for like yeah like let's just party and have fun with the time that we got

and I was like until we all get boiled alive not the nihiless I thought he was going to be like client change is fake he was like no very real let's just turn up the last little week

we fucked up he was like Earth had a good run we were having a I said, Earth had a good run. It's crazy. You giving up? You're giving up.

Okay, okay. I'm like, I'm still trying. I'm going to suck on the paper. But he was like, nah, let's just give up. It was so funny. I was dead. But anyways, back to these people. So they switched their insurance company, right?

They were like, them, like, I really think it's what you said. Yeah, yeah. The premiums are too high. Lower premiums for our crime. And so they switched companies and now they're with this new This new place, yeah, firemen. Firemen is, which why is the fire? Oh, why is the firemen involved?

Why are they in it? Wait, I want to find, yeah, firemen's fun. I don't understand why the firemen's is involved, but okay. So as usual, they fake their everything, pretending to have grown tomatoes on the ground since 1991, created a full decade of forced documents with notarized lease agreements, false testimony from a realtor. Now we got a realtor involved, okay?

Not realtors. Listen, realtors, like, there are realtors who really are talented at realty and, like, getting you a great property or home that you love. And then there's realtors who were scamming and doing other shit. And they were like, what can I do next? You get my real estate license. You know, so you have those. Some realtors in New York, when they're showing you apartments for rent, I'm like, bro, you ain't no realtor. Like, you are a dude that they hired to just hang out at the building and let us see it.

That's right. You don't know shit about this place. The open doors. Yeah, literally. He's like, yeah, so you see here you've got cabinets. Yeah, over here. We got, we got this one of the bedrooms. Is this the main bedroom?

It's one of them. It's, yeah. One of my favorite little real estatey scams that ever happened was when my ex-wife and I, we moved to New York and we were looking for an apartment, a guy, and like an agent shows us one. And as we're going up the stairs, this couple is coming down the stairs. And they're like, we really really. I really love it. It's really great. And then he shows it to us. And it was, you know, okay or anything, but we didn't pull the trigger on it. It was in our neighborhood. And like a day later, I was walking by there. That same couple was waiting. They were plants that, like, walked out. They were, like, waiting. And I saw the realtor coming up with another client. And they're like, we love it. You know, it's fantastic. Yeah, yeah.

asking. Right. Yeah. No. So they also had, you know, their fake planting dates, their fake spraying records, bogus harvest records, false diagrams detailing, a fantasy irrigation system that they wanted to make. Mm-hmm. Fantasy irrigation.

In 2001, they stepped their shit up, okay? They got on Microsoft Paint and they said, let's make a fantasy. Then, you know, they probably got on PowerPoints, you know, and they made a fantasy. And they had hundreds of fake invoices. So once they got crop insurance in place, the warrants planted 252 acres of tomatoes, but had actually only planted five acres. So what you mean? So when they got the insurance in place, they planted 252 acres of tomatoes, but had actually only planted five acres. I'm going to let you guess which acreage is accurate.

So on July 4th, their brand, on the 4th of July 6th, excuse me, their brand new farm was devastated by a freak hail store. on a day with clear blue skies. The farm employees purchased bags of ice and mothballs from the grocery store through a load of tomato plants, I'm sorry, through the loads around the tomato plants and snapped photos of the hailstones falling from the sky with a disposable camera.

So you know how hail be. It looks like mothballs. And it definitely happens on the 4th of July. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. For the Jalasi. For the Jalasi. Excuse me. Oh, my gosh.

So thank you for correct. According to Bobby Chambers, who ran the farm in Tennessee, do we have a photo of Bobby? Bobby said, Bobbi said, the way we did it, we was down taking pictures out this row, and then we just stood behind it and threw up, threw the ice up over top. To me, it looked like a hailstorm. In broad daylight. Yeah, in broad daylight, no rain inside. Listen, we don't got Photoshop that good right now, right now.

It's 2001. Everybody ain't got, you know, came forward, take it, clacks. There's no, there's a, there's like, I mean. Y'all couldn't even have somebody throw the ice on, Bobby. And look at there's a driveway behind where there's, there's no, there's no, there's no hail over there. Y'all got to put the fake hell everywhere. Yeah, it's not destroying the stuff in behind, yeah. It's like, we ain't harvested that yet, so the hell didn't hit it.

The hell didn't want that. I'm like, what? Is this what got him caught? Please tell me that this photo scam is what got him called. Please. So basically, he's telling you everybody, where to look. He said, to me, it looked like a hail storm. To me, it don't, Bobby.

Bobby, it don't look like a hell storm to me, Bobby Chambers. Then they picked up wooden tomato steaks and acted or attacked the plants. So they picked up wooden tomato steaks and attacked the plants. Right. To simulate the damage that the hailed would have done. Because you know how hell be attacking the plant. Right, right. Yes.

In July, in a clear sky. It hates tomatoes. And definitely doesn't look like ice that Bobby threw up in the air real quick. He's like, take the picture. On three. On three. And it's amazing how well hail can target tomatoes from the sky. Like it doesn't really fall around the area just right on the tomatoes.

And you know when you need to file an insurance claim for hail, it's important to go out in the actual hail and take pictures with the hail, hailing on you. Yep. You don't wait till it's over. Every farm has tons of disposable cameras. Just in case. So, oh no. I had to have to read this. This is also Bobby Chambers.

They had one Mexican who did all the beating. He beat 16,000 of them. He just go through there and knock the leaves off of them, Bobby said. Yeah. That Mexican love beating tomatoes. He's like, I don't need no help. I'll beat all the tomatoes. Yeah, yeah.

So to replant 252 acres, of tomatoes. The warrants got $98,000 in 2001 for over 17 farms. They received, for over the 17 farms, they received $1 million from the fireman's fund and claimed they were owed an additional $3.8 million. That's when the U.S. Department of Agriculture finally started an investigation. That's when it wasn't the hail photos. It was that they came back again and they were like, you know what, actually this time we won't $3.8 million. Like you already made so many million. Before the 3.8, they were probably at around 5.8 million. So why? Why?

I don't know. Just greedy maybe. Or who knows? Maybe they had like, maybe there's some gambling thing going on. You know, sometimes that happens. They got to clean up all in mothballs. That's at least a meal. Oh, absolutely. And life is, you know, in rural western North Carolina, life is very expensive.

Oh, so expensive. Expensive is hail. So the USDA official estimate of about 5% of crop insurance payouts each year go to phony claims. That's pretty low, in my opinion, about the same proportion found in other types of insurance. The farmers buys an insurance policy that provides partial coverage, usually 50 to 60%, for the crop that he expects to raise. So that's why they started up in the crops that they wanted to raise because then they could also up the amount of insurance money that they received, even though they were lying and foraging about this. So the insurance agent sells him the policy. The loss adjuster is ditched batch to inspect the field if the farmer claims a disaster.

If the disaster is confirmed, the crop insurance comes, right? And you get a check. And then the U.S. Treasury, which guarantees the risk farm insurance, often reimburses the insurance company. So the warrants were stealing the government's money. And we realized that a long time ago. And you really can't steal from the government. They can only steal from us. It's a one-way theft street.

Right. Right. You try to take from Uncle Sam. I mean, he's going to get your ass. He's going to like, we want you in prison. Yep. You need to know that. So the insurance companies weren't dumb, though.

They weren't in on it. And we kind of had a hunch about that, too, because we found out the government was running it back. It's like, yeah. Right, right. Yeah, y'all got millions of acres. We're definitely going to get y'all that billion. Sure was too bad about your tomatoes.

Right. Everything looks real hellish up here. Oh, yeah, sure. They look pretty ruined over there. The claims adjuster comes out, he gets in one of the photos. They throw ice up on there. It's like, looks like hell to me. So insurance agent George Casier coached the warrants in detail about how to perpetuate the fraud.

Oh. Oh, we were saying earlier. Insider knowledge, yeah. Insider knowledge, if you have it from the insurance company. Look at us. Geniuses. Then adjuster Thomas Jeffrey Marsh testified that his supervisor at the insurance company instructed him to lie on crop damage forms for,

the warrants. It took federal prosecutors three years to unravel the Warren scheme. He charged the warrants as well as two of their employees, an insurance agent and an insurance adjuster with participating an extensive scheme to defraud the federal crop insurance corporation. So this is the federal prosecutor who charged them. Robert's attorney said, it's fine for the government to issue sentencing memoranda and make Robert Warren appear to be the Saddam Hussein of crop insurance, but he's not. The Saddam Hussein of crop insurance is crazy. Take it easy.

Not Osama bin cropping. Yeah. The Jeffrey Dahmer of tomatoes. Yeah, he's not that at all. Oh. Oh, it is 2001. So remember like Saddam Hussein was a really popular name at the time. Yeah, he was hot then.

Yeah, a lot of babies named Saddam. So Bobby Chambers testified for the government and got two years probation. And honestly, the way that Bobby Chamber speaks, get that man probation. He knows it's not what he do. Yeah, yeah. He was throwing ice in there, talking about, look at him. That's a simpleton if I've ever seen one. It weren't my fault. Right. He was like, all I did throw the ice in the airlock that told me to. I was just, I'm a good German. Yeah. I do as I was told. We threw the ice up in the earth and I picked some tomatoes. Yeah. Yes. Okay, Bobby, it's okay. You can be free. I hope you and your Mexican friend are both free.

I hope the Mexican man was not charged. No. Seeing as we don't have his name, I hope he was not charged because he didn't do nothing but what he was assigned to do at the job house. Absolutely. If I go to the job house and they're like whack on these plans, I'd be like, okay, anything else is above my pay grade. That's right.

Okay? I'm just a plant whack. That's what I do here. So Bobby testified for the government, right? And Robert and Vicki took a plea deal and agreed to forfeit $7.3 million and pay $9.15 million in restitution to the USDA. They both got six years in prison, but that wasn't the end of their criminal activity. Lord, Jesus, I'm going to wrap it up with the rest of their crimes.

But I do want to stay here, Andy. I don't know. I have a question for you. Do you think that the government should have put them in prison or should the government have made them like actually repay them with real crops? No, put them in prison. Okay. Because I just think like restitution, you always get like a huge restitution like that where it never gets paid back. Yeah, yeah.

I'm like, let's take it back in tomato. Right. Yeah, but no, but you got to, you got to, you know, the whole idea is to de-incentivize the crime. And if, you know, and if other scammy farmers were seeing like, oh, well, they just made him grow tomatoes legit. We might as well try and fuck over the government. And we might not get caught if we're not as brazen as these people.

But I feel like a lot of people who do, especially like farmers or anybody doing their passion, like, I feel like you only start scamming one if you're just like, that's in your nature. But I think I'll say maybe it's like 60-40. I think that 60% of people who get into scamming, like, they kind of just like need the money or fine with the wrist. And then there's like a 40% who are like, I love crime and this is what I'm

going to do. And I don't, and I'm a sociopath and I don't have any I don't really care about other people. But the government deals from us all the time. The Pentagon can't account for trillions of dollars. Well, it's also messy too. Because as I'm sitting here saying like, no, put them in prison. It's like, I don't know, you know, because it's like, there's too many goddamn people in prison as it is, but it is, but I don't know what to do. How do you stop people from tomato scams? True. You know, it's like what? How do you de-incentivize that kind of thing? And I don't,

I don't know, you know. I feel like an ankle monitor and having to work their own crops and stuff for six years. At least we're all getting food out of it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Well, yeah, government work farms make them actually grow the, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, I take it back. I take it back because that would quickly turn into more slavery for me. Yeah. We already have so much prison slavery. No, no, no, no, I think you're on the right track.

No, no, no, I will not. Everyone growing tomatoes. No. Then I'm going to be like, yeah, if you steal a car, you got to make license plates. Oops, they're already doing that in prison. No, no, no, terrible idea. What happened to me? What happened to?

Oh, my God. Get out of me, capitalist man. Oh, no. Get the away. I got a sage in here. Oh, what was that? The man got me for a second. I said Uncle Sam too many times and he appeared.

Like, yeah, he came on my shoulder. I said his name too many times. He said, we want you. And I was like, okay. All right. I like to be wanted. I do love to be wanted. So we're going to just run through some more of the crimes they did real quick.

And this is after. Yes, after. Shortly after his release, Robert, the husband in the scheme, embarked on a scheme to evade currency reporting laws by making a series of cash bank deposits of less than $10,000. Wow. So he was avoiding them getting the text because the deposit was less than $10. And it started while he was serving probation in a halfway house. Now, you are in the halfway house.

You're halfway out of jail. You already got one foot back in. So that's two feet. Fish got to swim. So he owed the government millions of dollars, right? And forfeiture money. So he was attempting to hide the cash that he did have because he didn't want to pay the government back, of course.

So he deposited more than $200,000 at RBC Bank after his release from prison in November 2012, in amounts small enough to avoid having the transactions reported under the Bank Securities Act or Bank Secrecy Act. Banks are required to file, you know, to the internal new, they have to tell the IRS like, oh, they're getting money. And then the IRS is like, word, let's call them. Yeah, and he was like, I'm not going to tell the IRS. I don't want them to know I'm getting money.

So, yes. And I do really hate that about the IRS and the banks because they're like, oh, you've got money. Okay, yeah. We've got to tell somebody. Yeah. And if you ever need to withdraw a large amount of cash, who, the bank will be like, no, come back on Thursday. Oh, no, Thursdays we closed at 9 a.m. Like, they did not want to give you your money.

Yeah. So bank records show that Robert deposited $208,000 over five months. Why not just live your life cash? There's so many, like, you can pay cash for your rent so many places. You could, like, get a little, one of those, like, little debit cards and put cash on it, prepaid for online purchases. But why am I trying to help you? I don't know. I don't have the mind of a tomato barren. I don't either. A tomato gangster. So he had asked the teller how much he could deposit without the bank having to file a report once. And the teller told him, that's why everything he did was, didn't exceed $9,000. Is that what it is?

It's $9,000 now? Yeah, yeah. So as long as it's under 10K. Yeah, $89.99. Yeah, every time. $89.99. But I love the teller being like, not like, well, so what do you mean by that? The teller's like, yeah, no.

So under $9,000, you goochie, yeah. You want some deposits, yes. And if you're coming on a Friday at the end of the month, we ain't going to check that shit until Monday so you can do a double drop if you want. Like what? And also, go looking up at the library. Because if you're asking a teller that you're basically telling the teller,

hey, I want to scam, you know, like. But the teller's job is telling, I think she's just telling to the customers. I don't know if she's telling the government. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but I mean, if that was a question I wanted to know because I wanted to hide money, I would. I would find out then just like walking into the main. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hello, I was wondering, if I was going to do something nefarious, what cash level would I have to stay under? Oh, sir, please take that pin. I'm not going to do that, of course. Take that pin with the chain and just write down the nefariousness, just right in and then slip it under the glass. 89, 99, 99. Perfect.

See you tomorrow. See you tomorrow. Now, this is great. Yes, come in and do your crime, sir. You have a great day. Thank you for banking with us. Thank you for doing crime with us. You appreciate it.

No, please do. Come again. Crime again, okay? So wrapping this up, a bank manager told an IRS investigator that she witnessed Warren, this is Robert, making deposits of older $20 bills that were rubber banded, wrapped in aluminum foil, and freezing cold. No, the bank manager, the teller told it. The teller was like, what is money?

So ice called, I would be like, my assets were frozen, and now they thawed. And also, dummy, ding-dong, take them out of the freezer the night before. Jesus Christ. Like you can't be bothered to unwrap the foil. It's like if you made counterfeit money and you give it to people hot off the press. Yeah, yeah. Smell the ink. Right.

It smudged a little bit when I held it. No, no, no, no, no. That's from the government. It was in my back pocket. Right out of the oven. I keep all my money in my crotch area, so that's all it was. It's just crotch dollars. It's just moist.

Oh, no, moist. Yeah, he was tripping. And older $20 bills, don't keep going to the same bank branch then. Mm-hmm. Because, yeah, there are, there's so many newer 20s in circulation that that might catch somebody's eye. So sometimes the cash, he did, cash Warren deposited, smelled stale and musty. Mm-hmm. And not you was bringing in the stanking-ass cash.

Yeah. You better freeze that cash before you bring it in. That's why the tellers got tired of him. Yeah, yeah. They were getting hot, wet, spanky-ass cash. Right. Well, it sounds like he was hiding, like while they were stealing the government money before they got caught, they were hiding money. He was hiding it in a freezer.

But the musty, I wonder if that's like, I don't know, if there was buried money, if it was in a mattress. You're supposed to keep your hidden money like pristine and in like a chest. Yeah, yeah. This sounds like it was giving freezer, but then like. Well, like the cocaine, you know, down in Columbia, they would like bail pallets of money. and then bury it. And it would come, you know, like they'd wrap it in plastic enough. It was literally dirty money.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, but it was clean because they wrapped it in plastic. It was completely wrapped in plastic. Yeah, you see footage of it. It's like unbelievable how much money that they, well, they just had to get rid of so much cash. Where is his saran wrap? I don't know. He was using aluminum foil.

This is such a husband thing to do of like you definitely grew up as a young boy and never did any chores. Don't know how to do your own laundry. Like have no cooking skills If your wife tell you to put away the spaghetti You put the whole pot It was cooked in in the fridge It's giving that activity Well, but also to be fair too

Saran wrap does not hold up well in the freezer Not as well as foil That's I guess Is that true? I think yeah yeah I mean maybe not a freezer If it's gonna have stuff in it And have mildew

Or turn the freezer off I don't know what to tell you But I definitely know that now These bank tellers would have let you live if you had this sketchy-ass deposits going on, but the money wasn't stanking, rusty, wet. Yeah, no. If I'm a bank teller and I got to come in every day

and count the money and it's my hands are touching money all the time, money's already dirty enough. You got nasty booty money? Like, no. Just febreeze it. Yeah, Fabreeze the money. Yeah. Lysol the money.

That kills the germs, and the germs kill the odor. We're trying to help you. So when the USDA investigation started in 2001, and Robert began burying stacks of $20 bills wrapped in an aluminum foil, then cloth bags, then stuffed in PVC pipes.

This is where the PVC came in, which made them invisible to metal detectors. That's why he started depositing when he got out of prison. A judge ruled a crime was a violation of his release on the previous conviction, and he was sentenced to 29 more months in prison. PVC pipes is so smart.

You couldn't have been smarter with the aluminum situation? You put this in the ground. The ground is wet. Well, if you seal a PVC pipe, it's not going to get in there. If you put it, you know, if you encap it and, and, and glue it. Yeah. Because, I mean, they're water pipes. So they're watertight.

You know, they run through your house and they don't leak. So, yeah. No, that's good. It's good to know. Apparently the money still got must. I think all your listeners should, like, file that away for if they ever need to hide something, bury PVC pipes. Well, regardless, he did. successfully hide the money

until he started bringing all that wet money places. Yeah, yeah. Well, oh, goodness. Robert and your wife what was her name? Because Robert, it seems like you were doing most of the crime. I'm glad you got a lesser sentence here because you were really out here. Her name is Shirley. Let's call her Shirley.

No, her name is Vicki. Her name's Vicki. Her name's Vicki. But I'm glad that Vicky doesn't seem to be involved in those specific shenanigans. Convicty. Convicty. That was beautiful, Andy. And on that note, we have reached the end of the podcast.

Oh, well, thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. You're fantastic. We always ask, where would you like to be found? Anything you want to plug? Well, I have a podcast called The Three Questions. And I also do a serious XM radio show on Wednesday's Andy Richter Call-in show, which is a lot of fun, very silly.

And I'm going to be involved in a television show coming up that I, I've been told I can't, I can't say. But if you are watching television, you may see me. Yes. If they haven't already, Andy. You may see me shaking my ass. Let's just put it like that. Oh, okay.

Yes, we love to see. We're going to love to see it. Yes. And as always, Congregation, you can find all the photos of these farms and these manufactured hailstorms at Scam Got Us Pod on Instagram. If you want to chat with me, Scam Got His Pod on Twitter, if you want to follow me and my shenanigans D-I-V-A-L-A-C-I-D-V-A-L-A-C-I-D-V-A-L-A-L-P-L-P

My book is available now where books are sold where audio books are sold. All the episodes of Scam Gotta Season 1 are now airing on Hulu and all the episodes of Going Dutch are airing now on Hulu as well and we are currently shooting season two of that show. And y'all, seriously, okay? If you want to do something nice for a black lady today,

get on your podcast app, and like and subscribe and leave a nice review of how much you love me. Okay, and maybe I'll start reading these reviews on the show. Y'all can't always write nothing crazy, but, you know, I might read the review. I don't know. Yeah, I might read the review on the show. Maybe I'll read the, no, I'm not even going to say that.

But, okay, congregation, I want you trying to get out there, stay convicting. Don't get convicted, though. Mm. Have conviction. Mm. Scam Goddess stars and is hosted by me, Lacey Mosley, a.k.a. Scam Goddess. Our producer is Jessica Cisneros. And our audio engineer is Rich Garcia. Research for the show is conducted by Kate Doyle. Stay scheming.